


See Through It All

by Soozen



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Mentioned Claudia (The Dragon Prince), Mentioned Viren (The Dragon Prince), POV Soren (The Dragon Prince), Soren Needs a Hug (The Dragon Prince), Soren-centric (The Dragon Prince), Viren's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 01:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soozen/pseuds/Soozen
Summary: It's a long ride to the Storm Spire, and Soren has plenty of time to think.
Relationships: Claudia & Soren & Viren (The Dragon Prince), Claudia & Soren (The Dragon Prince), Soren & Viren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 10





	See Through It All

It is a long ride to the Storm Spire. A number of long days, long nights, with no one to talk to and nothing to distract Soren from his thoughts.

Soren has always avoided being lost in his own head. It’s never done him any good, really. He isn’t a thinker, not like Claudia. All muscles and brawn and fast reflexes, destined for great things but only with a blade in hand. The youngest crownguard in history; the only time he’d ever heard pride in his father’s voice was when he said this.

Fighting doesn’t require thinking, his father would say, and that was why Soren excelled at swordplay. One didn’t need to analyze, only be sharp of eye and quicker with the hand. And after years of hearing that, of the words being repeated over and over and over until Viren didn’t need to even speak for Soren to hear it in his own head, Soren stopped trying to be clever. He stopped trying to figure things out, stopped trying to think things through at different angles the way Claudia could.

There was a comfort in fitting into that role. He didn’t need to think. His father did that for him.

Only now, he doesn’t have Viren to tell him what to do. He doesn’t have Claudia to explain why things had happened the way they had. Soren only has himself and his memories and his thoughts.

It feels strange- not foreign, not exactly, because he had started to doubt his father when he had laid in that infirmary, paralyzed and thankful for it- to only rely on himself to consider what was said, who his father is.

It had been easy, those weeks ago, to accept the task of ensuring that Callum and Ezran would never make it back to Katolis; after all, his job wasn’t to think, but to follow orders, and his father was the smartest person he knew. If Viren had said that the princes had needed to meet an unfortunate end, then who was he to say that was wrong?

Even though, deep down, he had known it was wrong.

But upon confessing his secret mission to Claudia, seeing her horrified response, Soren knew that he had been in the wrong to go along with this plan. Claudia was smart. Claudia saw the task for the evil that it was, and if she saw it, then his gut had been right too.

That was the first seed of doubt; small, but deep. He can see that now, while riding across the foreign planes of Xadia, while lying on the soft grass and staring up at the stars- the same stars he is used to back in Katolis. That surprises him. Whatever the reason, Soren had always imagined everything would be different and strange and awful in Xadia. But they all live and lie under the same stars, and there’s something nice about that. Poetic, even.

(He might one day write a haiku about it.)

But one memory keeps creeping up on him, every time he wonders if he made the right decision, if he should have stayed (for his father, or for Claudia, he could never say), one that he wishes he didn’t have, one that is more painful to relive than when his mom left, worse than when he was dashed against that boulder and crumpled to the ground, unable to move even a finger. And it comes to him, strong, as if he is still there, down in the dungeons, standing beside Claudia as they stared at their imprisoned father, of Claudia explaining how the egg was now a dragon, that she’d had to save him instead of capturing the baby dragon; and his father’s immediate, passionate response:

_“That doesn’t matter!”_

The ferocity and determination and _anger_ in his father’s eyes at that moment still haunts him; the anger that Claudia had put Soren’s life first. He remembers that all so clearly, but the explanation that had come after is less vivid. Something to do with sacrifice, of choosing the greater good over family.

(The first night that Soren can’t shake that memory off, he vows to never sacrifice loved ones for the bigger picture. The only reason he’s alive is because Claudia loves him too much to follow through on Viren’s orders, and he will never forget that.)

And then, comes the conversation later, where Viren twists his words, and twists Soren’s, and confuses him and wins over Claudia, and Soren had never been able to put to words the feeling of that absolute certainty he had in knowing what his father had asked of him, and the confusion that followed. And the pain that Claudia so quickly accepted their father’s explanation.

(The second night, Soren wonders if he hasn’t already broken that vow, by leaving Claudia with their father.)

The loneliness he feels is one unlike anything he’s ever experienced. Soren has never been alone, not really. Maybe a night or two when Viren and Claudia would go off somewhere during her training, but even then, he wasn’t actually alone. They would come back. They were his family, after all.

But now, he knows he has no family to turn back to. His father would transform him into a monster at the first opportunity, just like that prince from Neolandia had been. There was no humanity left in Kasef after what Viren had done to him, and _that had nearly been him_. And he hates how that thought creeps in and settles in and takes deep root, and no matter how he wants to think of anything else, he can’t. He was only ever a tool for his father. Never a son, never someone to care for.

There is a difference- and Soren is convinced of this- between letting someone die to stop another, and transforming someone into a horrific beast.

He’ll never understand how, for all her cleverness and sharpness of mind, that Claudia can not see what their father has become. How quickly she accepted and forgave him for suggesting she leave Soren to die. How untroubled she was by what Viren wanted Soren to become.

Claudia might know more about books and magic and facts, but Soren isn’t so convinced that she's the smart one.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I have a lot of feelings about Soren breaking out of the FOG, and seeing Viren for who he is. 
> 
> (but seriously, Soren needs a big hug, preferably from Claudia ASAP)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @soozencreates for fanart and fandom nonsense.


End file.
